Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has made a name for herself nationally by asserting her state’s sovereignty, famously “bucking the feds” on both immigration and health care reform and citing the 10^th Amendment as justification for her actions.

However, on the subject of Arizona’s medical marijuana law, which was passed by voters in 2010, Gov. Brewer has taken a strikingly different approach.

Last year, Gov. Brewer sued in federal court, asking U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton to determine whether the state law is valid and refusing, in the interim, to implement a key part of the law that required the state to register 125 dispensaries. The ACLU and U.S. government argued for the dismissal.

Last Wednesday, Judge Bolton threw out Gov. Brewer’s lawsuit challenging Arizona’s medical marijuana law. Gov. Brewer filed suit while refusing to implement a key part of the law that required the state to register 125 dispensaries.

Judge Bolton’s decision was based largely on the fact that the state had no plans to violate the federal Controlled Substances Act and that there was no imminent threat of state workers being federally prosecuted. Gov. Brewer may refile her lawsuit within 30 days if she amends her claims, and she has indicated that she intends to do so.

Brewer’s lawsuit has been an unbelievable affront to the voters, a waste of taxpayer money, and a direct impediment to sick people’s access to medicine they desperately need, all coming from a governor obsessed with “standing up to the feds” on some issues, but not on behalf of seriously ill citizens in Arizona.

Arizona residents are encouraged to call Governor Brewer and tell her to stop challenging Arizona’s voter-enacted medical marijuana law!

The message for Gov. Brewer is simple: follow state law!

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Attention middle-age marijuana users: you now have one more piece of ammunition to use against people who say that marijuana use is making you slow.

According to a study published last year in the American Journal of Epidemiology, moderate marijuana use, both past and current, has no long-term effects on cognitive function and memory. Of the 9,000 adults around the age of 42 that were surveyed, those that had used drugs in the past (even the recent past) scored equal to or slightly better than those who had never used any drugs when tested at age 50.

"Overall, at the population level, the results seem to suggest that past or even current illicit drug use is not necessarily associated with impaired cognitive functioning in early middle age," said lead researcher, Dr. Alex Dregan, of King's College London.

That is certainly good news, especially for the more than 17 million regular marijuana users in the United States. However, it is important to differentiate between users and abusers, especially considering that harder drugs were included in the survey. Dr. Dregan goes on to say:

"However," he told Reuters Health in an email, "our results do not exclude possible harmful effects in some individuals who may be heavily exposed to drugs over longer periods of time."

It seems safe to say we can add this study to the others showing that cognitive impairment from marijuana is only temporary and will not, as they say, make you dumb.

Another study that this demographic should find interesting was published last year in the Journal of Analytic Toxicology. Many people in this age group often worry that a failed drug test could jeopardize their jobs or put their families at risk. According to this study, zinc is very effective at interfering with standard urine test accuracy when it comes to detecting marijuana and two other drugs. It is also basically untraceable.

Both zinc sulfate and zinc supplements are effective in interfering with the detection of all three drugs by Immunalysis drug detection kits. Also, no suitable method could be established to detect zinc in urine samples. Zinc can be an effective adulterant in urine for some illicit drugs that are commonly screened under routine drug testing.

This information is intended to be educational, and one should certainly never risk his or her employment based on something read in a blog. The noblest option is to tell any employers requesting a drug test that the content of one’s urine has nothing to do with the quality of one’s work. Unfortunately, most people don’t have the luxury of picking and choosing from jobs these days, so this study could provide some food for thought.

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Ron Paul may have achieved something of a victory by coming in third in the Iowa caucus yesterday, which is something few political wonks could have imagined a couple of months ago. Still, something should be said for the fact that he maintained his firm stance against the drug war after being narrowly beaten by candidates who are absolutely against marijuana reform.

In an early morning interview, Paul renewed his call to end federal interference in state marijuana laws and repeatedly called the drug war a failure. He even went so far as to call it a worse failure than alcohol prohibition! And according to Paul, his performance at the Iowa caucus proves that many Americans agree with him and are fed up.

Here’s the video, courtesy of Huffington Post.

And then we have Newt Gingrich. Earlier today at a press conference in New Hampshire, an SSDP member asked the candidate how he felt about states’ rights and how the Founding Fathers would have felt about growing marijuana.

Here’s the video:

Huh. So this is what a self-styled “historian” thinks.

"I think Jefferson and George Washington would strongly discourage you from growing marijuana, and their tactics to stop you would be more violent than they would be today."

While there is no evidence to suggest that George Washington or Thomas Jefferson actually used marijuana (despite what you may have heard in Dazed and Confused), there is plenty of evidence that they both grew hemp and supported its cultivation throughout the country.

There is also no evidence that they would have supported violent tactics against American citizens for growing a plant. That sounds like something King George would have done.

Gingrich is all about it, though. Over the years, he has repeatedly supported creating insanely draconian punishments for drug offenses, even going so far as to push for the death penalty for smugglers. He recently suggested making our drug policies closer to those of Singapore.

So when faced with a loss to a candidate whose supporters often rally around the intent of the Founding Fathers, Gingrich decides to rewrite history to make it sound like men who rebelled against tyranny would support his tyrannical policy stances.

People care about honesty. Maybe that explains why Ron Paul beat Gingrich by eight points last night.

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Last month, we asked you for your take on laws that require welfare recipients to take and pass a drug test in order to receive benefits. It was a hot topic, generating more comments than any blog posting since the U.S. attorney crackdown in California. We also set up a survey, which over 700 of you responded to.

So, what were the results? The vast majority of you, about 74%, were opposed to drug testing aid recipients altogether. The rest of you split roughly evenly between support for testing recipients for all drugs and support for testing for “hard drugs,” but not marijuana. The survey results skewed along the same lines as the views of our commenters, most of whom were opposed to testing altogether. Here’s a sampling of some other thoughts from our commenters:

Commenter Justin wants to look past ideology and focus on results:

Of course we would all likely prefer people receiving government assistance not use that aid to purchase anything besides the bare essentials. And if there were any indication that drug testing prevents drug use I would fully endorse its use. But the reality is every indication points to drug testing as being a very poor deterrent to drug use, in other words it simply doesn’t work

Reader David says if you’re going to drug test, do it consistently and equally:

I think anybody who receives government money, this includes all politicians and elected officials, should be subjected to random drug screens. What’s fair is fair.

Many of you agreed with Patrick in singling out companies that conduct testing:

 … the real beneficiary of drug testing welfare recipients is the dirty drug testing industry who I personally would love to see destroyed … We all know that the drug testing industry lobbies hard to maintain marijuana prohibition as they have a vested interest in doing so.

Thanks to all of you for responding to the survey and to those of you who took extra time to leave your thoughts in the comments section. As an organization focused on optimizing policy with respect to marijuana, we agree with the overwhelming majority of our members that drug testing aid recipients is intrusive, ineffective, and wasteful, and we will continue advocating against bills that require testing as a condition for receiving benefits.

We welcome our supporters’ feedback on this and other issues. If you’d like to share your opinion, leave your comments here at the blog or contact us directly. We can’t do our work without you, so it’s important to us that we have your support. Thanks again!

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People who are familiar with Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul have probably heard him speak about the need to end marijuana prohibition in the past. In fact, he mentions it quite often these days. Considering that only one other Republican candidate shares this opinion, it isn’t unusual to hear Paul bring this up in debate. Not only does this set him apart from the other candidates, but it is very telling to hear the rest of the field claim to be “conservatives” in favor of limited government and personal freedom, while supporting what is arguably the most intrusive, expensive, and wasteful government policy in existence.

This weekend, however, Ron Paul shared that message with a significant portion of America while speaking with Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show.” Judging from the audience response (not to mention a recent Gallup poll that shows a majority of voters support making marijuana legal), the need to end marijuana prohibition is becoming more obvious.

Perhaps this is why Ron Paul stands a very good chance of winning the Iowa primary.

Here is the entire interview. The section on prohibition starts at 6:35. Stay tuned until the end and see longtime MPP supporter Joe Rogan make an appearance!

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Marijuana use by 8th, 10th and 12th grade students increased again in 2011, with more American teenagers now using marijuana for the fourth year in a row, according to numbers released today by the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the University of Michigan as part of the annual Monitoring the Future survey. In 2011, a slightly larger percent of high school seniors used marijuana in the last 30 days, while slightly less had used alcohol. Marijuana use continues to rise among youth despite the continued policy of arresting nearly a million people every year for marijuana violations.

“This report, once again, clearly demonstrates that our nation’s policymakers have their heads buried in the sand when it comes to addressing teen marijuana use,” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project.  “Political leaders have for decades refused to regulate marijuana in order to keep it out of the hands of drug dealers who aren’t required to check customer ID and have no qualms about selling marijuana to young people. The continued decline in teen tobacco and alcohol use is proof that sensible regulations, coupled with honest, and science-based public education can be effective in keeping substances away from young people. It’s time we acknowledge that our current marijuana laws have utterly failed to accomplish one of their primary objectives – to keep marijuana away from young people – and do the right thing by regulating marijuana, bringing its sale under the rule of law, and working to reduce the easy access to marijuana that our irrational system gives teenagers.”

Since the survey’s inception, overwhelming numbers of American teenagers have said marijuana was easy for them to obtain. According to the 2011 numbers, the use of alcohol – which is also regulated and sold by licensed merchants required to check customer ID – continued to decline among high school seniors, as did tobacco use.

“Arresting people for marijuana simply does not stop young people from using it, and it never will,” said Kampia. “It is time for a more sensible approach.”

To read the report, go here.

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At a hearing discussing the controversy surrounding Operation Fast & Furious, which allowed numerous firearms to be transferred to operatives for Mexican drug cartels, the attorney general got some questions on another drug war problem: the crackdown on medical marijuana.

Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) asked Attorney General Holder if the Department of Justice intended to leave medical marijuana states alone as was promised in the Ogden Memo in 2009, as well as whether the recent crackdown in California on medical marijuana providers would be extended to other states.

Holder’s response was the same one that has been parroted by the administration again and again: medical marijuana is not an enforcement priority, given the department’s limited resources.

If that is true, what are the U.S. attorneys in California, Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Michigan doing? It seems as if they’ve been spending a lot of time and effort on a “low priority” lately.

Is Holder lying, or has he let the dogs at DOJ off the leash while he tries to explain why the federal government allowed guns to “walk” into Mexico that were later used to murder U.S. law enforcement agents?

Here is the clip:

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Last month, I had the pleasure of attending the CATO Institute’s “Ending the Global War on Drugs” conference. The event featured a number of prominent scholars and international leaders who spoke about the impact of the U.S.-led drug war, both here and abroad. One of my favorite speakers of the day was Dr. Harry Levine, professor of sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Dr. Levine has been researching the history and sociology of alcohol and drug policies for thirty years, and most recently has been working on the Marijuana Arrest Research Project, which collects and analyzes data on the immense number of marijuana possession arrests that the NYPD has made since 1996. (It should be noted here that possession of small amounts of marijuana has been decriminalized in the state of New York since 1977 — making it a violation, rather than a crime, so long as the marijuana is not in public view.) According to Levine, in New York City, misdemeanor marijuana possession accounts for more arrests than for any other crime, and because of the recent increase in the number of arrests, “it is appropriate to call this a marijuana arrest epidemic, and to describe what the NYPD has been doing as engaging in a marijuana arrest crusade.”

Dr. Levine’s lecture focused on the how and why of these marijuana possession arrests, explaining the various ways in which such arrests benefit police departments. In sum, police departments are pressured to show productivity, and these kinds of arrests are relatively safe and easy, involving “clean,” high-quality arrestees. Moreover, these arrests provide good training for rookies, deliver overtime pay for cops, allow supervisors to account for their underlings, and act as a net to get as many people into the system as possible, all at a cost borne entirely by the victims — the arrestees.

The federal government, according to Dr. Levine, actively supports these practices through the grant funding it provides to police departments. If departments receive these funds, they must justify how the money is spent, and what better, easier way to do that than with hordes of marijuana possession arrests? In short, this amounts to what LEAP board member (and fellow speaker at the conference) Leigh Maddox described as the “prostitution of the police peacekeeping mission for federal drug arrest dollars.” Dr. Levine suggests changing police productivity measures so as not to include small-time marijuana possession arrests. The punch line, Levine contends, is that rather than ending marijuana prohibition to put an end to marijuana arrests, it’s the inverse – by removing incentives for marijuana arrests we can move closer to ending marijuana prohibition.

But the answer of how to transform this tangled web of power, profit, incentive, and corruption remains unanswered. Sadly, such change is unlikely to be initiated by truth-telling law enforcement officers, or at least, active-duty ones. Last week, the New York Times reported on the consequences faced by two law enforcement officers who dared to express dissent with current drug policies. Both Bryan Gonzalez, a Border Patrol agent in New Mexico, and Joe Miller, a probation officer in Arizona, were fired from their positions — Gonzalez for questioning the war on drugs (specifically, the war on marijuana), Miller for expressing support for the decriminalization of marijuana. Fortunately, organizations like LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) provide a forum for current and former members of law enforcement to express their frustrations with the harms and futility of our present drug policies and to support a system of drug regulation rather than prohibition. Unfortunately, many active-duty law enforcement members are reluctant or unwilling to speak out, and with good reason, in light of the sanctions faced by Gonzalez and Miller noted above.

On a positive note, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that low-level marijuana possession arrests have fallen 13 percent in New York City since a September directive issued from Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly cautioning officers to lay off the wrongful arrests of those possessing a small amount of marijuana concealed from public view. Hey … at least it’s something.

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Huge news broke today in the world of marijuana policy reform. Governors Christine Gregoire (D-WA) and Lincoln Chafee (I-RI) announced in a joint conference call that they had petitioned the federal government to reschedule marijuana. We can expect that this will produce headlines across the country. We can also expect that the coverage will tout this as a far more significant – and positive, from the perspective of patients – event than it actually is.

Before harping on the negative, let’s appreciate the positive aspect of the announcement. What we have here is two governors filing a petition with the federal government, backed by extensive documentation, saying that marijuana has an accepted medical use in our society. We have known this for years, but it is nice that it is becoming the general consensus. Unfortunately, that’s about all we have on the positive side of the ledger. After that, it is mostly bad news wrapped in good news clothing.

The misleading coverage started the moment the news broke, when The New York Times published its exclusive on the announcement. Describing how the governors wanted marijuana moved from Schedule I to Schedule II, the Times wrote, “Such a classification would allow pharmacies to dispense marijuana.” While technically true, in the sense that pharmacies cannot dispense Schedule I drugs, the reader is led to believe that marijuana would be available in pharmacies as soon as it is rescheduled. This is far from certain and could be a long way off on the horizon.

Given the long-held position of the federal government that it is the FDA that determines whether a substance is a medicine, it is likely that marijuana will not be available in pharmacies until it has made its way through the FDA approval process.* This is a process that could take up to a decade under the best of circumstances. But marijuana research does not exist in this country under the best of circumstance. In fact, as I wrote about recently in a Washington Post piece about stalled research on the use of marijuana for PTSD, it is almost impossible to conduct research on marijuana in this country. Moving marijuana to Schedule II will not change the rules under which marijuana research is (or is not) conducted.

Even if we were to ignore this not-so-minor problem about research and FDA approval, the governors clearly left the impression that they were pursuing rescheduling over embracing, implementing and defending existing medical marijuana laws in their own states. Yet they know that the rescheduling process will take years, perhaps more than a decade. In the meantime, patients in their states will suffer. The best Gov. Gregoire could say about this unfortunate delay during the press conference was that she was going to “encourage the federal government to not take nine years” to consider the petition. Woo. Hoo.

Finally, there is the additional matter of the specific request for Schedule II, a category of drugs defined under law as having a “high potential for abuse” that “may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence.” Drug like cocaine and morphine fall in this category. Marijuana does not belong there. At worst, marijuana should fall in Schedule III – where Marinol, which is synthetic THC is placed – a category of drugs that “may lead to moderate or low physical dependence or high psychological dependence.”

The New York Times article even included a quote from Governor Gregoire, suggesting that marijuana was not on the same level as the more dangerous Schedule II drugs.

Ms. Gregoire noted that many doctors believe it makes no sense to place marijuana in a more restricted category than opium and morphine. “People die from overdose of opiates,” she said. “Has anybody died from marijuana?”

No, Ms. Gregoire, they haven’t. And the harms from marijuana overall are quite limited. You and Mr. Chafee have come a long way today. Now it is time to step entirely out of the world of negative marijuana stereotypes and allow medical marijuana programs to move forward in your states. Rescheduling will happen eventually -- and we commend you for petitioning for it -- but you shouldn’t make patients in your state suffer in the meantime.

* The author would like to include a clarification, or perhaps it is a correction, here. After consulting with experts, he believes that a lengthy FDA approval process, meaning full trials to prove that marijuana is effective for a specific condition, would not be needed before marijuana could be available in pharmacies. However, there could still be a significant delay before marijuana appears in pharamacies after rescheduling (a process that could be quite lengthy itself). The DEA would have to license entities to cultivate the marijuana -- a process likely to be slow, given the DEA's history in this area. Then, maybe six months to a year later, the FDA would need to examine the marijuana produced by any entity to ensure that it is a consistent, reliable and pure product. And even after all of these steps have concluded, patients may have to deal with obstacles stemming from marijuana being listed as a Schedule II drug, including the fact that doctors and pharmacies would have to report every prescription to the DEA and that there would be no refills allowed, increasing the number of times patients would need to see doctors.

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The Obama administration has always paid lip service to the idea of pursuing more sensible drug policy, but has rarely lived up to its promises. From launching state-to-state crackdowns on medical marijuana providers despite promises to let states determine their own policies to attempting to license the federal government’s marijuana patent for profit while claiming that marijuana has no accepted medical value, the Obama administration continues to disappoint on this issue. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske may say that the War on Drugs is over, but “legalization” still isn’t in the President’s vocabulary, and the war on marijuana users is still in full effect.

Given this unfortunate history, the administration’s signals of hope last week rang even more hollow.

The three pardons granted last week by Obama to former marijuana prisoners could be viewed as a step in the right direction for an administration that has consistently increased its enforcement against marijuana violations. It is certainly a boon for those three individuals, who will no longer have to deal with the stigma of arrest and incarceration haunting them the rest of their lives. Those three people will find it easier to find employment, apply for student loans and federal education assistance, and will finally be able to vote again.

The recipients of these pardons should be lauded for becoming pillars of their communities after their incarceration. But how many pillars have been torn from their communities by prohibition, whether for providing medicine to sick people or simply choosing to relax with a substance that is safer than alcohol?

Those three people should be celebrating. The mitigation of the effects the war on marijuana has had on their lives is long overdue. But that celebration provides no solace to the 853,000 people arrested in the U.S. in 2010 for marijuana violations, 750,000 of which were for simple possession. Nor does it comfort the families of those who have died at the hands of the police during marijuana raids, or those who have lost beloved family pets and property to marijuana prohibition.

The press conference given by Gil Kerlikowske last Monday is perhaps even more insulting to supporters of drug policy reform. The purpose of this event was to address concerns that minority populations were being disproportionately affected by drug laws and what could be done to fix this problem. While he proposed many positive efforts to reduce the effect that drugs have in the African-American community, he overlooked some glaring facts.

Even though marijuana use among whites is higher than in any racial demographic, minorities are arrested for marijuana violations at a staggeringly higher rate throughout the country. This disparity in arrests, as well as the accompanying disparity in sentencing for drug crimes has an undeniably detrimental effect on African-American and Hispanic families and communities that is directly tied to the ability of police to arrest people for marijuana. Even in New York City, where marijuana possession is technically decriminalized, law enforcement found a loophole to facilitate the arrests of over 50,000 people a year for marijuana violations. The vast majority of those arrestees are people of color. Until we remove the threat of arrest, we cannot adequately or realistically confront the impact of drugs in any community.

Kerlikowske is right: we cannot arrest our way out of our drug problems. Logic would suggest, then, that we stop trying. For the drug czar to propose fixing those problems for minorities while leaving policies in place that undeniably support systemic racism is disgraceful.

It may be a good sign that the Obama administration is looking at this issue with a little more interest, and is moving along harm reduction lines to solve it, but the fact remains that the government is still at war with marijuana users. We need to go further. There must be a legitimate dialogue in the White House to mirror the one occurring on an international level and among voters about the failure of marijuana prohibition.

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